SEOUL - South Korea's foreign minister accused North Korea Friday of developing nuclear weapons to launch an attack on its southern neighbor.

"North Korea has developed nuclear weapons as a tool to communize" the Korean peninsula, Yu Myung-Hwan told local business leaders. "North Korea's nuclear weapons take aim at South Korea."

South Koreans should not be swayed by a "naive" belief that talks aimed at denuclearization were just a matter between Washington and Pyongyang, he said.

Pyongyang was only seeking direct talks with Washington as part of a strategy to remove US troops from the peninsula, Yu said.

Washington has said it was prepared to talk directly with North Korea as a way of bringing the reclusive state back to six-party nuclear disarmament talks, which also include South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

The six-party forum, which North Korea quit in April after the UN censured its long-range rocket test, was the "most effective" tool for dismantling its nuclear program, Yu said.

The North said its rocket sent a communications satellite into orbit for nonmilitary purposes. But the US and its allies said the launch was meant to test a missile theoretically capable of reaching Alaska.

Meanwhile Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young told parliament Friday that South Korea had located the site where North Korean atomic bombs were kept.

He also said Seoul could strike the site through quick consultations with Washington if North Korea tried to fire a nuclear weapon at South Korea.

After months of hostility, the North last month began making peace overtures to Washington and Seoul.

It freed two US journalists following a visit by ex-president Bill Clinton and called for direct talks with Washington on the nuclear standoff.

The North also released five South Korean detainees, eased curbs on the operation of a joint industrial estate in the North, and sent envoys for talks with President Lee Myung-Bak.

The two Koreas remain technically at war after their 1950-1953 conflict. About 655,000 South Korean soldiers, backed by 28,500 US troops, face a potential threat from the North's 1.2 million-strong military.